Google begins rolling out AI Mode to consumers to take on Perplexity, ChatGPT

AI Mode, accessible through a dedicated tab on the Search results page, combines advanced capabilities from the company's AI models with access to its information systems, including real-time sources like the Knowledge Graph, real-world data, and shopping information for billions of products.

It uses a "query fan-out" technique which breaks down a question into different subtopics and concurrently searches on each of those different search topics across multiple data sources. It then brings these results together to provide an easy-to-understand response.

The feature builds on Google's AI-powered search experience, AI Overviews, that was introduced last year. AI Overviews provides a quick AI-generated summary of a topic along with links to go deeper, at the top of the search results. These features, which were using a custom version of Gemini 2.0 until now, will be upgraded to Gemini 2.5 that was introduced in March 2025.

Google is also expanding the rollout of AI Overviews, which is now used by more than 1.5 billion monthly users, to new countries and languages, making it available in over 200 countries and territories and 40 languages.

"Google Search is bringing Gen AI to more people than any other product in the world. In our biggest markets, like the US and India, AI Overviews are driving over 10 percent growth in the types of queries that show them. What's particularly exciting is how this growth increases over time. It's one of the most successful launches in Search in the past decade," Pichai said.

AI Mode: A glimpse of what's next in Search

Liz Reid, who heads Google's Search team, said that they will graduate many features and capabilities from the AI mode into the core Search experience in AI Overviews in the future. "AI Mode is a glimpse of what's to come in Search overall" she said.

Last week, Google also announced it is testing a new AI Mode button on its homepage with some users, replacing the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button, indicating the growing role of AI in Google's core product.

With AI now front and center in Search, expectations for accuracy and reliability have also grown, especially after a rocky start last year when AI Overviews sparked controversy after delivering several bizarre and erroneous results that went viral.

In a select media briefing, Reid mentioned that responses in AI Mode reach a 'higher bar' in terms of quality, accuracy, and factuality than AI Overviews.

Reid said the company has made several improvements since then, including upgrading to newer AI models and continued engineering work on tuning and teaching the AI model to improve quality.

In the coming months, AI mode will offer advanced capabilities such as Deep Search that can issue hundreds of searches, reason across disparate pieces of information, and create an expert-level fully-cited report in minutes.

It will analyse complex data sets and create interactive charts for that specific query, starting with finance and sports queries, the company said. It’s worth noting that Perplexity has also rolled out similar experiences for finance and sports queries in recent months.

Google also plans to bring AI agent capabilities from its research prototype Project Mariner into AI mode to help users with event tickets, restaurant reservations and local appointments. The company will be working with companies like Ticketmaster, StubHub, Resy, and Vagaro for this initiative.

Among other forthcoming features include Search Live, which brings Project Astra’s live capabilities into Search. It will enable people to talk back-and-forth with Google Search about what they see in real-time, using their camera.

Consumers will soon receive more personalised suggestions based on their past searches. One can also opt in to connect their accounts across Google's apps, like Gmail, to receive more personalised search recommendations in AI Mode.

The new AI Mode shopping experience brings together Gemini model capabilities with the company’s Shopping Graph to help users browse for inspiration and narrow down products based on their preferences.

People can also upload an image to virtually try on billions of apparel listings, and make use of the new agentic checkout feature to have it purchased on their behalf with Google Pay.  These features will be available through Google's Search Labs initiative later this year.

Rival OpenAI also started offering product recommendations in ChatGPT in April, as part of the firm’s efforts to improve its shopping experience. The recommendations offer visual product details, pricing, and reviews along with a direct link to buy the item.

OpenAI also claimed in April that users made more than a billion web searches in ChatGPT in a week.

These developments also come at a time when Google is facing the threat of a breakup by the U.S. government, following a U.S. federal judge's ruling in August 2024 that the company violated antitrust laws to maintain its online search monopoly.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is seeking to break up Google, potentially forcing the tech giant to divest its popular Chrome web browser, syndicate its search and advertising data to help rivals improve their quality and end exclusive distribution agreements with companies like Apple. The US district court is currently hearing arguments to determine remedies for this case.